If you’re looking for a quick way to burn through all your loose change, veteran electronics firm BayTek may well have the most efficient solution – a Flappy Bird arcade game.
The Wisconsin-based company has just unveiled its new machine, based on the 2013 smartphone title, which became an unexpected viral hit in 2013. Requiring players to deftly tap one button in order to keep the onscreen bird in flight while avoiding a series of pipes, the game has been downloaded more than 50m times, at one point reportedly making over $50,000 a day in downloads and in-game ads.
Although creator Dong Nguyen withdrew the game from sale for several weeks, allegedly worried about its apparently addictive impact, he later re-released it. Since then, a massive merchandising business has nested around the unlikely hit, with tie-in clothes, toys and books.
The new arcade machine boasts a 42-inch screen, and a single giant red button to control the hapless avian hero. As players avoid pipes they earn tickets, which the machine fires out at the close of play. These can then usually be spent on items in the arcade shop.
Flappy Bird is certainly not the first smartphone title to get the arcade treatment. The likes of Temple Run and Doodle Jump have also been successfully converted. It’s not yet clear, however, how many turns one coin buys you - most single Flappy Bird attempts last several second at most.
A tie-in cartoon, movie and cable television drama series are surely already in the pipeline.
